Chillington. "To hate with a hatred that dwarfs all other passions of
the soul, and makes them pigmies by comparison? If you know this, you
know the feeling with which I regard M. Platzoff. If you want the key to
the feeling, you have it in the fact that his accursed hands robbed my
dead son: even then you must have a mother's heart to feel all that I
feel." She paused for a moment as if to recover breath; then she
resumed. "See you, Mr. Solomon Madgin; I have a conviction, an
intuition, call it what you will, that this Russian scoundrel is still
alive. That is the first fact you have to find out. The next is, where
he is now residing. Then you will have to ascertain whether he has the
diamond still in his possession, and if so, by what means it can be
recovered. Only recover it for me--I ask not how or by what means--only
put into my hands the diamond that was stolen off my son's breast as he
lay dead; and the day you do that, my good Madgin, I will present you
with a cheque for five thousand pounds!"

Mr. Madgin sat as one astounded; the power of reply seemed taken from
him.

"Go, now," said Lady Chillington, after a few moments. "Ordinary
business is out of the question to-day. Go home and carefully digest
what I have just said to you. That you are a man of resources, I know
well; had you not been so, I would not have employed you in this
matter. Come to me to-morrow, next day, next week--when you like; only
don't come barren of ideas; don't come without a plan, likely or
unlikely, of some sort of a campaign."

Mr. Madgin rose and swept his papers mechanically into his bag. "Your
ladyship said five thousand pounds, if I mistake not?" he stammered out.